


School years

by RebeccaAnabelBurrows



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F, No Lesbians Die
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-02-09 23:29:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18648304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RebeccaAnabelBurrows/pseuds/RebeccaAnabelBurrows
Summary: Rhea Lupin, Sothis Black, Jane Potter and Piera Pettigrew through the years.





	1. Before Hogwarts

Rhea Lupin laced her old leather boots with care. She looked so innofensive for an evil creature. Her mother had braided her chestnut hair and there were delicate little blue flowers embroided on the long sleeves of her new white blouse. Her black trousers were covered with white stars her mother embroided to repair the holes. Rhea would have felt self-conscious about it if it wasn't her favorite pairs. Money was tight in the Lupin's household.

It had not always been that way.

Rhea could still remember a time when all her parents' money didn't disappear in expensive potions, a shed where she could transform, chains to maintain the she-wolf in it and other stuff for her transformation.

Mum said it wasn't important, but Rhea was not dumb. She had heard the ushered conversations that stopped when she entered a room, she had heard her parents yell at each other and had seen the ressentment and the pity and the guilt in her father's eyes;the deepening crease in her mother's brow.

They were no longer a happy family and it was her fault. If she hadn't been biten, maybe Lyall Lupin wouldn't mind taking his own daughter into his arms and Hope would still be working in that coffeeshop she loved working at instead of being a stay at home mum homeschooling her kid because they had no other choice to make it work. No wizarding elementary school would take a werewolf in. Explaining bouts of pre-moon and post-moon sickness to a muggle school was not possible. Lyall had the better paid job, and the Lupins decided Hope would take care of Rhea's education and be there for Rhea when she was tired because of the moon cycle.

The day Albus Dumbledore came in person to tell them that Rhea could go to Hogwarts and that dispositions would be taken for her transformations was a cherished memory. Knowing that she wouldn't be a burden for her family for the next seven years was a real relief for the young girl. She could have wept with joy. Hope was worried, she could tell, but at the rare sight of a happy and bouncing Rhea, she capitulated.

The girl sang smooth tunes for days after that. She had been at her happiest. She didn't have second thoughts before this morning, nervousness slowly taking possession of her body.

"Are you ready, love ?" her mother asked from the bathroom, readying herself for a job interview.

Rhea looked around her, saw her worn travel trunk and her schoolbag - a birthday gift from Grandma - , checked her appearence in the corridor's mirror and answered back.

"Uh... I just need a minute. Have you seen my coat, mum ?"

"Your dad put it in the car. Come here and hug your mummy ?"

Rhea did as she was told.

"Be a good girl. If people are mean to you, ignore them. Sadly you can't afford to be too much noticed. Your professors will know for your condition, you can talk to them. You'll write to us if you need anything, right ? And even if you don't, I want you to keep us informed. It's going to be okay, Rhea. Pinky swear."

"Don't worry mum, I'll be fine. I'll better hurry up, Dad will be mad at me if I miss the train."

/

Jane Potter let out a small cry of triumph, brandishing her prey. Prey that wasn't very impressive in itself but made her right hand disappear from view. She closed the second drawer of her father's secretary quietly and wrapped herself in the Invisibility cloak before tiptoeing to the door.

Once safe in her room, she put the cloak in the bottom of her trunk, disrupting the clothes her house elves folded carefully before closing the lid, stamped with the Potters' coat of arms. Their motto, Virtus Repulsae Nescia, appeared underneath in golden letters.

A man with a full head of white hair knocked at the open door of the teenager's bedroom.

"Is my favourite daughter ready for her big day ?" he asked, looking at her fondly.

"Let me see... I have my school stuff, my clothes, my pranking kit, my wand... I am good." Jane declared with an angelic smile.

"Don't tell about the pranking in your letters, you know your mother wants you to grow up like a fine lady, not the village's jester. Mind, I do not have a definite opinion on that subject."

Niobe Potter joined them a few minutes later, to find her husband explaining Quidditch tactics to their daughter.

"Harry dear, stop chatting and take care of our rulebreaker's luggage. Jane, come here, your hair won't do, it's all over the place."

After much arguing, some empty threats and a good use of hair management charms, the heiress of the Potter's name looked quite irritated and her hair looked like it could stay managed for a hour or two.

/

Piera Pettigrew had always been an unremarkable girl. She was petite and unremarkable. Straw-like hair, shifty eyes and cauliflower ears paired off with nervousness and shyness didn't make you the most popular kid of the neighborhood.

Her mother raised her alone. Her father had left before her birth. Patty Pettigrew had refused her parents' help because of her pride and the two of them now lived in a small house in the country where they raised chicken and a few cows. Every Saturday, they went to the market to sell milk, eggs and apple pies.

They grew vegetables and fruit in the garden.

Patty was projecting to aquire beehives so they could make honey. They were doing fine.

Piera didn't want to go away to school. But Grandma had sent money and Patricia was determined that her girl should get an education.

So Piera nodded and bought school supplies with her Grandma. She packed her bags obediently and went to sleep early.

In the morning, she kissed her mother goodbye and took the Knightbus to King's Cross. She hopped into the train and sat alone in an empty wagon, counting the days until the next holidays.

/

Sothis Black let a sight of relief escape her lips when she dropped her heavy trunk in the first compartment she found. She was glad to be there at last. The trip to the station had been excruciating, what with her mother berating her for the way she stood, how she walked and the wrinkles in her dress robes.

Two girls were there. One of them had dark skin and was wearing a seahorse-shaped brooch on her dark red velvet robe. A Mackinnon, then. She was engrossed in a very large book. She was chewing her left thumb's nail with anticipation.

The other girl in the compartiment had chestnut hair put into a long braid, cheap muggle clothes and was using her schoolbag, covered by a scarf, as a makeshift pillow. She looked like Death warmed over, with her very pale skin and the dark circles under her eyes. Her eyes stayed closed when Sothis sat next to her.

"She was sleeping before I even went there. You're the Blacks' eldest, I presume ? I am Marlene MacKinnon, second year."

The other girl extended her hand a bit reluctantly. Blacks and MacKinnons didn't have a happy common history. Both Houses were proud of their blood but MacKinnons' motto was Jus prius omnia and it was a foreign concept to the Blacks.

MacKinnon shook her hand with a tight smile. Blacks didn't have the nicest reputation.

The girl with Muggle ties shifted in her sleep.

"Is she a first year ?"

The older girl shrugged.

"I've never seen her before and she looks so small and skinny. She had the strangest scars on her arms for a Muggle, tho. Probably a half-blood."

"Scars ?"

"Yeah. Her sleeve rode up when she moved a bit earlier."

"Do you think I can have a look without awaking her ?"

"Do as you please. She looks like a heavy sleeper, my book fell earlier and she kept her eyes shut."

Sothis gave MacKinnon a quick smile. She was a girl after her heart.

The grey-eyed girl went nearer her future classmate and swiftly made her right sleeve slide to reveal a thin arm covered with thick pale scars.

She was about to touch them, fascinated, when her future classmate jerked away.

"Don't touch me !" she growled.

"It's dark magic, how..."

Sothis' voice died in her throat when their eyes met. The other girl had beautiful golden eyes and... There were so many emotions in them : she was furious and sad and astonished and still slightly asleep and self-loathing and disappointed and ... and... and terrorized and Sothis had just no idea how you could be all that at once.

The other girl started shaking and Sothis remembered her Aunt Minelauva died of a seizure. She didn't want the other girl to die.

"Breathe, halfblood. McKinnon, go fetch a Professor. Breathe, you stupid halfblood !"

"NO ! No... professors. I am fine, I am fine." the partly-Muggle kid protested vehemently, forcing herself to take deep breathes, and Sothis realised she was not having a seizure but sobbing.

She felt relieved. A better person might even have felt bad.

"I didn't mean to scare you."

It was the closest thing to an apology she had ever said.

The girl with chestnut hair nodded, blew her nose with her handkerchief and wiped her tears with the back of her hands.

"It's okay. Just... don't do that again, alright ?" she said with great calm.

She didn't speak for the rest of the ride but didn't sleep either. She looked so relieved to go away from McKinnon and Sothis when the train stopped that the Black's heiress almost felt hurt. Almost.


	2. The Sorting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rhea's reflections during the ceremony

Call it animalistic instinct if you want, but Rhea could swear she could feel the girl with intense grey eyes was looking for her in the crowd. She had never felt so glad to be petite and unremarkable.

She had changed in her second-hand school robes in the train's loo and was doing her best not to trip on them which was not an easy task.

The castle was as magnificient as her father had told her mother. He seldom talked to her directly. Rhea understood his shame and guilt.

Having a werewolf daughter and being responsible for her current state was something someone else could have killed themselves for. Others had. At eight, Rhea had decided she wouldn't have children. Not because of her lycanthropy, she wasn't so concerned about it being a danger for others yet. She had chosen so because children destroyed families.

Her very existence was the reason of so many drifts.

Her muggle relatives didn't know she was a witch, a werewolf even less. It put a barrier between her mother and her sisters, them who had been so close while growing up. Grandma worried about Rhea's incurable disease too much and her daughter's refusal to send Rhea to specialists -who would not see anything wrong in their graphics if she went to them- baffled her.

Her father's family was something else. Half of them wondered why the Lupins didn't abandon their offspring at an earlier time, always suggesting "good, serious" institutions where she could "go and get to know her peers" with the best intentions. Some didn't visit the Lupins anymore now that they knew their daughter was also a dangerous, murderous beast.

Aunt Adele and her husband protested regularly for the killing of registred dark creatures (werewolves included) and offered their condolences when Rhea had been recovering from Greyback's bite. Hope Lupin would have killed her sister in law then if it hadn't been for her husband.

The only member of her magical family Rhea actually liked was Uncle Ralph. He bought her Muggle books about werewolves - who had strange habits nobody had ever heard of in the magical world - with happy endings. He knew her favorite brand of chocolates and always offered her some for Merlin's Day. Ralph taught her German, called her "my einsamer Wolf" or "my junger Wolf" with affection and ruffled her hair all the time.

He had always sent a card for her birthday. Rhea kept them in her desk' secret drawer at home, but decided to take them with her at Hogwarts.

Ralph was delighted at the news.

"You'll love Hogwarts", he told her.

"Echt ?"

"Echt, my einsamer Wolf."

"The castle is big enough for you to spend days without having to talk to anyone if you don't want to", he explained, "and there are many activities you can do on your own. It's nice if you need peace and alone time. But I have no doubts you will make some friends eventually."

He then proceeded to tell her stories of his own youth, talked about his doormates Jonah, Perseus and Sylvain, said her Professor Binns was a bore but she would love to learn about the history of the magical world anyway if he knew her well. He told her Jonah was a disaster in Charms and that one day he...

"Don't you think it's quite enough ?" Rhea's father had cut him off.

"What do you mean, Lyall ?"

Uncle Ralph had looked geniunely confused but he also had seemed quite guarded. Rhea's father right hand formed a fist.

"I won't let you corrupt my daughter. Hope might be too smitten to see it but I know how your kind is and I don't want you near my daughter."

"I would never, and you know it. I am not what you're making me because of your conceited views. And you really shouldn't talk about your wife like that."

There was an underlying threat in his words. Rhea had already wondered once or twice if the long haired man was not a bit in love with her mother. He looked at her in a special way. Seeing her father taking his wand out of his pocket, the little girl had ran to Hope Lupin.

"Mum, Dad and Uncle Ralph are going to fight."

If her hearing wasn't far better than human hearing, she would have missed the "Not again" her mother whispered before leaving her book on the kitchen table in a hurry.

Uncle Ralph later apologized to his niece about the argument. Lyall Lupin never did. Uncle Ralph only came when her father was not home now and her mother asked her to keep his visits secret.

Children were family destroyers. Rhea didn't know why so many people wanted them.

Maybe now that she was at Hogwarts, things could be mended. She hoped so. With all her thinking, she almost missed the beggining of the Sorting ceremony.

Jesse Abbott and Maximus Abernathy were both sorted into Ravenclaw at the second the Sorting hat touched their hair.

The following student was also a boy but he had a shy and lost look about him and Rhea supposed he was Muggleborn. It was two good minutes before he was sorted into Hufflepuff.

The next child to be sorted was the girl that saw her scars in the train. Sothis Black, Professor MacGonagall called her. Curious name for a curious girl. Her manners would scream high society in the non-magical world as well as in the other but she looked more nonchalant than conceited.

"GRYFFINDOR" roared the Sorting hat.

The girl sat very still and didn't move for a few seconds. There was a great silence. Nobody talked for a while. The Sothis girl fidgeted with her embroided sleeves before walking to the table sporting the red and gold banner, head held high.

Someone at the table clapped and others joined them. The tension decreased, except at the Slytherin's table where people seemed gobsmacked and whispered between them.

Several students were sorted before Rhea's turn came.

She sat on the uncomfortable stool and the Sorting hat was put on her hair.

"Let's see... Interesting. You're a werewolf, then ?"

Shhh ! It's a secret. They can't find out or I'll be kicked out of the school.

"Maybe not Slytherin, then. Not that you seemed to belong there, you're not really the ambitious type. But you're smart."

You really think so ?

"Ravenclaw would be glad to have you. Quiet and creative students are happy there more often than not. However..."

Yes ?

"You're also a kind person with a good heart, child. Have you ever think of Hufflepuff ? Great House. Compassionate, hardworking students. Patient and understanding but also fiercely loyal."

Do you think I belong there ?

"Frankly ? No. You will be better suited for Ravenclaw or Gryffindor."

Gryffindor ? Isn't it for the brave ones ? The ones who like fighting and stuff ?

"It is known to have produced its fair share of warriors. However Gryffindors have other qualities. They can be rash and you're not but you're someone who dares, Miss Lupin. You follow your own rules and you believe in their fairness."

Riiiight. So ?

"I'll let you choose if you want to."

Ravenclaws would find my secret sooner. I guess Gryffindor is fine.

"GRYFFINDOR" the Sorting hat roared.

Rhea sat at the end of the Gryffindor table, congratulated by her housemates. She smiled at them, and blushed a little at the attention she was receiving.

She met the Black girl's grey eyes when she looked around her. She had forgotten about her. Maybe Gryffindor wasn't the right House, after all.


End file.
